In the automotive engineering sector, air outlets are used for the air conditioning of the motor vehicle interior and are known in many different embodiments. The air outlets generally comprise an air outlet housing, in which adjustable air flaps are arranged. In this case, the air flaps are embodied as valve flaps or guide slats, wherein the volume flow can be set by means of the valve flaps, and the direction of the air flow emerging from the air outlet can be set by means of the guide slats.
The air flaps are usually adjusted by means of an adjusting assembly, which engages on the air flaps and which can be actuated manually by the vehicle occupant or electrically by an electric drive. EP 1 520 738 discloses an adjusting assembly for an air outlet embodied as a gear mechanism, for example. The adjusting assembly has an input gearwheel, which is driven by an electric drive and which, in a first motion segment, is operatively connected to an output gearwheel connected to guide slats and, in a second motion segment, is operatively connected to an output gearwheel connected to valve flaps. The valve flaps and guide slats are adjusted by rotation of the input gearwheel. In a central position, neither of the two output gearwheels is operatively connected to the input gearwheel. Starting from the central position and depending on the direction of rotation of the input gearwheel, the first or the second motion segment is traversed and, in the process, either the valve flaps or the guide slats are adjusted. If the teeth of the output gearwheels are not in engagement with the teeth of the input gearwheel, the relevant output gearwheel is fixed by means of a guide element formed on the face of the input gearwheel so as to block rotation, wherein the output gearwheels each have a counter guide element adjoining the faces thereof, said counter guide element interacting in each case with the guide element.
A problematic aspect of an air-outlet adjusting assembly of this kind for a motor vehicle is that the adjusting assembly is complex and expensive to produce owing to the complex configuration of the input gearwheel and of the two output gearwheels.